authenticity

The word seems old fashioned in this disingenious world, doesn't it? But people like Robert Jensen are still trying to define it as something to be lived: "Authenticiy comes when your thoughts, your words, and your deeds have some relation to each other. It comes when there's a real organic relationship between the way you think, the way you talk, and the way you act ...." In a world driven by relative reality the authentic is in a shaky dance with a tottering, tattered superstructure of "reality."

A millionaire stepping back from his computer after having scanned the present evaluations from Wall Street, walks through his vast backyard around the pool, and down through the gate to the pier to fire up his spacious Chris Craft for a trip to the yacht club for breakfast. His authenticity will be tested as he navigates the relative realities of the channel between his home and club.

An aging Vietnam vet starts his day by arranging things in his sparse, small but comfortable apartment. Government benefits have finally caught up with him and now he can dress warm with his Goodwill clothes. He double locks the door and climbs up the stairs to the cluttered street. Two blocks away is the welcoming diner. Buon appetite.

Several years ago I found myself coming in for a landing at the Minneapolis/St. Paul Airport. I was seated in first class because they had overbooked the flight, and my companions next to the window were what I took for a very wealthy man and his young blonde escort. He had been describing a variety of things which were meant to impress. The last thing I heard him say was
"that you could tell what was really happening with metropolitan area by the number of corporate jets on the ground." Now I wonder how far he got toward or in his, and how that young woman has progressed with her authenticity.